After several years of decreasing or stable homicide rates, the number of killings in Costa Rica spiked in 2015, leading law enforcement officials to call for more aggressive prevention, investigation and prosecution of organized crime.
The body of Sondra Lynn Elizondo, a 45-year-old who coordinated volunteer medical missions in Central America, was found Wednesday at a hotel in eastern San José, Costa Rica's capital. She had several stab wounds.
Walter Espinoza, a 47-year-old prosecutor, steps into the position as OIJ chief at a time when Costa Rica struggles with killings tied to organized crime.
SAN SEBASTIÁN, San José – Special agents and prosecutors in San José attacked a large organized crime network dedicated to credit card and check fraud, among other crimes, on Wednesday morning, arresting a total of 22 suspects in 24 separate raids throughout the Central Valley.
Nine months have passed since Canadian expat Ryan Piercy was kidnapped in Costa Rica, and authorities here appear no closer to solving the case despite assurances this week from detectives that they are aggressively pursuing all leads.
Days after Costa Rican authorities arrested seven suspects in connection to an Italian cocaine-smuggling ring, Interpol officers say that mafia groups like the 'ndrangheta are looking to enter the crowded field of drug traffickers in Central America.
A steadily climbing homicide rate has left Costa Rican authorities struggling to find a strategy to combat increasingly violent and well-organized criminal elements, both international and local.
As a serial killer who has murdered eight impoverished women near Costa Rica's capital remains on the loose, police are trying to come up with answers and leads that can point them in the direction of their suspect.
If Joaquín Guzmán is, in fact, in Costa Rica, he wouldn’t be the first Mexican narco to seek safe haven here. Notorious drug kingpin Rafael Caro Quintero fled to Costa Rica in March 1985 following the death in Mexico of DEA agent Enrique Camarena.
